The US leading drug maker Pfizer Inc. will pay total $60.2 million to settle a federal investigation on alleged bribing overseas doctors and other health officials to prescribe medicines. ­The US Securities and Exchange Commission announced that the company will pay a $45 million fine to resolve charges of bribery in more than a dozen countries in Asia and Eastern Europe. Separately, Pfizer agreed... 

Observers are talking about the changes in the political and economic course of the DPRK. The new leader removed military from the country’s leadership and is trying to unleash the reserved officials. Innovation trickled to the cultural life of the country as well. Frivolous to the North Korean standards concerts are now held in Pyongyang and the newspapers added secular news. Kim Jong Un, the... 

The interim authorities in Libya have handed over power to a nationally-elected assembly. But as numerous rival armed groups control most of Libya, the escalation of violence continues against a background of an increasingly divided nation. During a ceremony late on Wednesday in Tripoli, NTC chief Mustafa Abdul Jalil passed the reins to the oldest member of the assembly, Mohammed Ali Salim. Once it... 

Israelis try to extinguish flames from a protester who set himself on fire during a demonstration in Tel Aviv on July 14, 2012. An elderly Israeli woman has set herself on fire, becoming the fourth person to self-immolate in the country over the past month. The woman, believed to be around 80, set herself on fire on Wednesday afternoon at her home in the city of Jerusalem, Xinhua reported. The elderly... 

According to an Army field manual “In these modern times, demonstrations, civil unrest, public disorder, and riots happen for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons are economic hardships, social injustices, ethnic differences (leading to oppression), objections to world organizations or certain governments, political grievances, and terrorist acts. An event can be triggered by a single cause... 

Syrian Army is gearing up for an all-out offensive to clear the Salaheddin district in the country’s commercial hub of Aleppo of insurgents. Reports say heavy clashes are underway between Syrian government forces and insurgents on the outskirts of the flashpoint city, but the government says it is in full control of Damascus. Fighting is also underway in the Sukkari, Hamdaniyeh, and Ansari districts... 

Kuban Cossacks set to staff proposed ‘anti-immigration patrols’ The governor of one of Russia’s southern regions has been accused of discrimination and nationalism for a proposal to deploy patrols to tackle immigration issues in the Caucasus region. Human rights activists blasted the governor for his statements. ­Governor Aleksandr Tkachev of the Krasnodar region came under fire after a meeting... 

An Israeli company, Elta, will install a radar system to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Elta’s technology can identify potential human infiltrators from as far as 13 miles away and vehicles from 26 miles out. The U.S.-Israel agreement opens up a potential market “worth hundreds of millions of dollars” to Elta, according to IsraelDefense.com. India... 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu The British ambassador to Tel Aviv says international support for Israel among those in the political mainstream is eroding, driven by settlement expansion in the West Bank and continued restrictions on Gaza. In an unusually forthright interview for Israel’s Channel 10 news, Matthew Gould said he has detected a shift among the middle ground of British... 

NASA’s make-or-break Mars mission has entered its landing phase on Monday morning. While the Curiosity rover attempts to land using a never-attempted sky crane, engineers back on Earth have no control over the pre-programmed sequence. The touchdown is scheduled for 5:31 GMT. NASA engineers will have to wait at least 14 minutes before learning the fate of Curiosity. That is if the Odyssey orbiter... 

Iskander-M tactical missile Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has described as “a political mistake” his country’s agreement to let the deployment of US missile system on its territory by 2018. “Our mistake was that while accepting the US proposal, we have not taken into account a political risk related to the change of the US president. We have paid a too high political price for that,”... 

Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Hijab has been sacked, state TV reported. His current whereabouts are unknown, and there are conflicting reports as to whether he has fled the country. Hijab, Syria’s former Minister of Agriculture, was appointed Prime Minister in June following parliamentary elections in the country. The ex-Prime Minister is currently in Jordan, where he fled with his family, Reuters... 

The West is mercilessly criticizing the Argentine government for a policy of debt reduction, maintaining of solvency and promotion of local producers. All this is because the country did not resort to the loaded assistance by the IMF or World Bank. Now many Argentines believe that the events of 2001 are being repeated, but the situation is still far from the dead end like in Europe. Argentine President... 

Japanese women sort through freshly caught fish at the Hirakata fish market in Kitaibaraki, Ibaraki prefecture, south of the stricken Fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant number 1 on April 6, 2011 Harmless traces of radioactive cesium have been discovered in fish and seawater in several areas of Japan, as the country continues to debate whether their fish is safe to consume and anti-nuke protests... 

Hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets in the Australian city of Sydney to voice their support for the government of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Press TV reports. Marching through Sydney’s central business district on Sunday, the demonstrators called for no intervention by foreign powers in the Arab state’s internal affairs. They held banners which read, “Let the whole world...